Liberal Arts Blog — Manet (Part II): “Masked Ball at the Opera,” “Self Portrait with Palette,” “Self Portrait with Cap,”
Liberal Arts Blog — Friday is the Joy of Art, Architecture, Design, Film, and All Things Visual Day
Today’s Topic: Manet (Part II): “Masked Ball at the Opera,” “Self Portrait with Palette,” “Self Portrait with Cap,”
Last time, three paintings by Manet: “Music in the Tuilieries,” “The Fifer,” and “The Dead Matador.”
This week, three more obscure ones — two self-portraits with two different kind of hats plus “Masked Ball at the Opera,” whose overwhelming feature is the multiplicity of top hats. What is your favorite kind of hat depicted in art? How about one of Rembrandt’s? Or perhaps the bowler hat in Rene Magrite’s ‘The Son of Man”? How about to wear? Why? Did you know that the last US President to wear a top hat at his inauguration was John F. Kennedy? It took the cultural revolution of the 1960s to kill it. Was that a good thing? Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
MASKED BALL AT THE OPERA (1873) — top hats, dangling legs, the dashes of color
1. “Manet came from a well–to–do family, and this painting provides a glimpse of the sophisticated Parisian world he loved. He was uncomfortable in the countryside, preferring instead the finery of the city.”
2. “These elegant men and coquettish young women are attending a masked ball held each year during Lent. “Imagine,” ran a description in the newspaper Figaro, “the opera house packed to the rafters, the boxes furnished out with all the pretty showgirls of Paris. . . . “ There is little doubt about the risqué nature of the evening, where masked young women, likely respectable ladies concealing their identities, scantily clad members of the Parisian demimonde, and well–dressed young men all mingle together.”
3. “Manet sketched the scene on site, but painted it over a period of months in his studio. He posed several of his friends — noted writers, artists, and musicians — and even included himself in the crowded scene. He is probably the bearded blond man at right who looks out toward the viewer. At his feet, a fallen dance card bears the painter’s signature.”
NB: “At the edges of the horizontal painting — format Manet used often — figures end abruptly. At top, legs dangle over a railing. In contrast to the self–contained compositions of academic art, we are instantly aware that we see only a part of the scene and that it extends beyond the picture frame.”
SELF PORTRAIT WITH PALETTE (1879)
1. Apparently, Manet was inspired by “Las Meninas” by Velazquez. (See first link below).
2. “The Self-Portrait with Palette is the only self-portrait by Manet in which he depicted himself as an artist. He depicted himself in several other paintings, but almost always as one of many figures in a large c composition. These works include Fishing (1860/61), Music in the Tuileries (1862), and The Ball of the Opera (1873).”
3. “The full-length Self-Portrait with Cap (1878–79) is the only other pure self-portrait by Manet.”
NB: “When the art historian and Manet biographer Adolphe Tabarant asked Manet’s stepson Léon Leenhoff about the point in time at which Manet had been stricken with Syphilis, Leenhoff gave 1879 as an answer, which would explain why Manet, who had never before in his life painted a self-portrait, had painted two within that year. It would seem that with the reality of death right before his eyes, he felt a need to come to terms with himself.”
SELF PORTRAIT WITH A SKULL CAP (1879)
1. The choice of a skull cap may be a reference to past artists who wore them in self-portraits, namely Filipino Lippi (1457–1504) and Titian (1490–1576)
2. “This sense of identification between one artist and another is so strong that even Larry Rivers, the twentieth-century American artist, could say in an address towards the end of his life: “….I was an artist in a drama about the history of art. I made the appropriate gestures; I played the role of connector from caveman artist up through the present. You name them, I was them.” It is a perennial, yet unrecognized, idea in art, sensed by masters in every century, regardless of style, period or country.” (third link below).
3. The portrait is located in the Artizon (formerly the Bridgestone) Museum in Tokyo — a museum founded in 1952 by the founder of Bridgestone, Ishibashi Shojiro (whose name in Japanese means “stone bridge”). Bridgestone is world’s largest tire company.
Self-Portrait with Palette (Manet) — Wikipedia
https://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/manets_self-portrait_with_a_skull-cap
Self Portrait with Skull Cap by Edouard Manet
Manet’s Self-Portrait with a Skull-Cap (1878–9)
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.61246.html
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned recently or ever related to art, sculpture, design, architecture, film, or anything visual.
This is your chance to make some one else’s day. And to cement in your own memory something cool or important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than you otherwise would about something that is close to your heart.
